A lot of people are not aware that the Asus RT-N16 actually has a 533Mhz processor. It is under-clocked to 480Mhz by default from the factory.

While the Asus RT-N16 appears to run just fine at 480Mhz, if anyone is interested in playing around with the clock speed here is how you do it.

Navigate to (Tools > System)

Paste the following commands.

nvram set clkfreq=532,266,133
nvram commit
reboot

Then click the Execute button.

The router will then reboot and when it comes back up, the processor will be running at 532Mhz with the RAM at 266Mhz.

You can play around with this further if you'd like and even under-clock the processor further if you're having problems with overheating. Just keep in mind that your RAM should always be at half the Mhz as your processor.

For example if you wanted to put your processor at 300Mhz due to an overheating issue then you could use the following commands.

nvram set clkfreq=300,150,75
nvram commit
reboot

EDIT by Toastman 16 Nov 2010

It has been known for some time that most RT-N16's and other routers using the same SOC chipset were unstable at 532/533 MHz. This was obviously also known by the router manufacturers and even by Broadcom, who downgraded their data sheet. All routers using these chipsets have therefore been released by the manufacturers using a lower clock frequency - usually 480MHz. Most routers "overclocked" by users to 532 MHz usually crashed after several minutes, and did some rather strange things in the meantime. A very few people say they obtained stable operation for long periods, but none of mine ever did (I have 5 RT-N16's in service).

Note that it has nothing to do with "overheating" or "inadequate power supplies" - no solid evidence has ever been produced to support these claims.

For some reason, the latest versions of Tomato firmware *seem* to have fixed something - because all of my RT's now work at 532MHz and now appear to be quite stable. Your mileage may vary, and it might be prudent not to "overclock" to 532 MHz until more people have tried it, but it's a 10% increase after all, and that's significant. Please post your findings so that we can all make up our own minds.

I am unfortunate enough to have one of those routers that goes unstable when overclocking. Even at the normal clock speeds I found processes like lighttpd die regularly. Underclocking really seems to help… I used:

nvram set clkfreq=440,220,110
nvram commit
reboot

I found after the reboot, I am unable to connect via WIFI until I do a cold boot. (Which means I physically pull the power from the router.)